David Foley is a partner in Holland and Foley Architecture, LLC, an environmental architecture firm in Maine.

"Wenn ich wusste, dass die Welt morgen untergeht, würde ich dennoch heute einen Apfelbaum pflanzen"(Translation: "Even if I should learn that the world would end tomorrow, I would still plant this apple tree today.")
-- Martin Luther

If were to win the the Great Wager , well need an elegant economy of effort. Our most daunting problems are linked and planetary, but many of the solutions will be crafted, piecemeal and patiently, in our households, neighborhoods, watersheds and bioregions.

...We each get 1.9 hectares, and we're already using 2.3. Where's the extra half a hectare coming from? It's coming from nature's capital... (Yet) just as a fair and sustainable footprint is a receding goal (shrinking as we use up more and more nature), so too is the idea of prosperity...

Were in ecological overshoot, but to have any hope of solving that problem, we must ensure a sufficient, decent and secure life to everyone.

Where people are desperate, tree crops bring hope. Were learning how to plant forests that are worth more to people standing than cut down. Examples are everywhere: many are aware of the Green Belt Movement founded by Wangari Maathai, but similar efforts are everywhere, often below the radar screens of media. One of my favorites is the work done by my friend Carol Kinsey through her organization Seed Tree.

Forest farms and gardens can serve the planet, but are necessarily place-based. Sources for edible trees, shrubs, herbs and even mushrooms are fitted to particular biomes. Every region has its heritage of edible tree crops. Like people, every cultivar has its own personality and needs.

Ben, I understand what you mean. In this context, Alex and I are distinguishing between stocks and flows. (No, "stock" isn't a metaphor for capitalism either.) We're consuming more than the flow of ecosystem services the planet can provide sustainably, by running down stocks of timber, soil, species diversity, and so on. What to do about that? Well, this essay is about one tiny piece of the puzzle. It's about working in partnership with nature to replenish ecological stocks in systems that also provide many useful flows to people.

Reading Mike Pollan's Botany of Desire you get
the sense that the orgins of the grains, fruits and vegetables we've come to depend upon are currently under threat. Do we really need to have GMO crops encroaching on the highlands of Mexico, or push indigenous potato farmers off the alta plano in Peru, or lose acres of apple orchards in Central Asia to real estate development. In respectng the biodiversity of plants and animals, maybe we also need to start looking at the places our food orginated from. In order to preserve the diversity of the germplasm.

Andreas, thanks for the mention of "no-till" agriculture. Low-till and no-till practices will be vital if we're to resotre organic matter to soils - another practice, like edible forests, vital to sustainability.